


jointly unravelling this storm-filled summer

by Ashling



Category: Peaky Blinders (TV)
Genre: F/M, I wrote this for a friend, first reader insert I've ever done feel weird about it, lowkey an AU but I won't spoil, tw: references Michael & reader's trauma as dictated by the show
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-11
Updated: 2018-05-11
Packaged: 2019-05-05 04:14:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14609067
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ashling/pseuds/Ashling
Summary: Birmingham is all rain and free whiskey and you have more than just met him before.Yeah, you remember him.(Written for a friend.)





	jointly unravelling this storm-filled summer

**Author's Note:**

> I feel obliged to warn you that this may not be my best, because I do not actually like Michael at all. However, my friend does, and I put so much work into this that I couldn't resist publishing, so anyways, here goes.

TW: some oblique references to Michael & Y/N’s past trauma

 

# I.

“It’s been a rainy summer, hasn’t it?” Edith, your flatmate, scowls up at the darkening sky and walks faster, pulling you along with her.

“Yeah.”

“I wish we’d brought an umbrella.”

“Yeah.”

“Could always flirt our way into a cab, but flirting our way out is harder.”

“Mm-hm.”

“We could always steal an umbrella.”

“Hm.”

She jostles you. “You’re thinking about him, aren’t you?”

Edith is practically your sister, and there’s no use lying to her. “Yeah.”

 

# II.

“Tonight’s the night,” Edith says, openly inspecting her own figure in the mirror, and you rest your chin on her shoulder and say, “I’ll make sure of it.”

And you do.

There’s a bit of a misfire, at first; you walk her over to a blonde man with gentle eyes, and realize only too late that he has a ring on the relevant finger. So Edith isn’t particularly happy with you, and you feel you have to make it up to her. Maybe that’s why you go for it. God knows it’s the stupidest thing you’ve done all week, and that’s saying something.

At any rate, when Edith has gone to powder her nose in the bathroom (read: try not to cry over the possibility of not losing her virginity at all on your one long weekend out together), you finish your drink and go over to the two boys. Well-dressed, cocksure, dangerous; all the things you find most dubious in men are the things Edith likes the most, so here goes nothing. The taller one is louder, more jovial, so you chose him.

“Buy me a drink?”

“Sorry?” he laughs.

Not a bad start. All you need is to keep him interested enough to talk more, and to put him off just slightly so that when Edith makes her entrance in all her curly-haired glory, she’ll be set off to an advantage.

“I think,” the short one said, “it’s the other way around.” There’s something about him that unsettles you. You can’t place it, so you choose to ignore it.

“I’m aware that it’s custom for the man to walk to me and say, ‘Can I buy you a drink?’ But I got tired of waiting for you to do it. You’ve been staring enough.”

“I didn’t notice I was staring,” says the tall one.

“If you weren’t, you should’ve been.”

You can see the conflict in his eyes; he’s intrigued by your forwardness, but also put off by it. Good, good.

Edith’s suddenly at your elbow. “Oh, y/n, of course you’ve made new friends without me.” Perfect. _Perfect._ Her lipstick, flawless, her hair, flawless, her skin, flawless. You suppress a grin of pride and turn back to the boys.

“I’d introduce you,” you say, “but we haven’t got that far.”

The tall one steps forward first, eager, with an easy smile on his handsome face. “I’m Isaiah Jesus.”

Edith’s face lights up. “Pleasure to meet you.”

“Michael Gray.” The short one smiles like he doesn’t mean it, but he shakes hands with her too.

 

# III.

Isaiah and Edith fuck on the first night, and you find your way into bed with a tall factory worker who you never see again. But. You can’t stop thinking about Michael, those quiet eyes, that still face. Handsome, undeniably, but--it isn’t only that. If it was about fucking him, you tell yourself, you’d have fucked him. But you didn’t, so it can’t be about that.

The problem is, Edith is infatuated. Isaiah must’ve given her that time of her life, because next weekend, she’s dragging you back to the same fucking pub, even though neither of you can afford to wear anything but the same fucking dresses. It’s embarrassing.

Her strategy is also embarrassing, but you’d happily cut off your ear for her, so when Michael and Isaiah show up, you go for it, flirting hard at Isaiah while Edith talks enthusiastically about her day to Michael, who again, says very little. Sometimes you get the sense that he’s watching you, or that his attention is on you, but maybe that’s only in your head.

It goes on like this for a couple nights, the two pairs of you having all the wrong conversations (although neither of the boys seems to mind it much), when Michael abruptly breaks pattern.

“Isaiah, weren’t you saying earlier that Edith might like the current exhibit at the museum?” he says.

“I thought the museum was closed this time of night.” But Edith is looking at Isaiah with those starry eyes and oh dear. A sudden pang hits you. Maybe you’ve helped her along too fast.

“Everything’s open to us,” says Isaiah, easily, as if it’s not the most stupid brag if untrue, as if it’s not the most terrifying thing if true.

“I’m not much of one for museums,” you say. This part is easy, easy.

“I’ll walk you home,” says Michael.

 

# IV.

“I’ve talked enough,” you say, once outside.

The tiniest smile crosses his face.

“I know. I know. I just put it on for Edith, she’s got all kinds of nonsense in her head about how to catch a man.”

“She may find it hard to catch one that doesn’t want to be caught.”

“We’ll see,” you say, because the idea that anyone could spend significant time with Edith and not love her is just unfathomable to you. “But anyways, tell me more about you.”

“What is there to know?”

“Where are you from?”

“I’m from here, though I was raised in the countryside…” And he’s off, now, on the most gentle and unsuspecting tales of tomatoes and horses and a sweet younger brother, and you’re slowly enchanted until you glance over and see it on his face.

“You’re boring yourself, aren’t you,” you say.

“Better to have a bored listener than one that’s too interested,” he says.

“There’s such a thing as too interested?”

“Believe me, there is.”

And you stop walking. Cause maybe you’re tired and maybe you’re crazy, but is that _believe me_ not straight from the past?

Thunder rumbles overhead.

“What’s your name?” you say, slowly.

He shoves his hands in his pockets. A wry smile assembles itself on his face. “Michael Gray.”  

“Sure it’s not Mikey Collins, now?”

“Not now.”

“But twelve years ago?”

This is the first real smile you’ve seen from him since 1909, and you can’t help it; you launch yourself at him, wrapping him in a hug, fuck the onlookers.

After a moment, he hugs you back.

“Asshole.” Your voice is half-muffled in his shoulder.

 

# V.

Yeah, you remember him.

He used to help you braid your hair when you were late in the mornings. You used to help him with his English (he never needed help with maths). You used to tell him stories and he used to get you ice for your bruises. You got him ice for his bruises. For a lot of things.

You were going to find his sister in Australia and you were going to buy a big house and horses and you were going to steal Billy Mccray’s marbles and you were going to get married and you were going to do a lot of things.

But he got adopted, and you didn’t, and that’s the way that went.

They never gave you his address. “He has a family now,” they said.

 

# VI.

So now it’s a problem that he’s handsome. It’s a problem that sprung up overnight, between your four-hour conversation catching up and the phone call from him the next day. It’s a problem you didn’t see coming and yet somehow also the biggest problem in your life, a life which includes, oh, real shit like bills from your landlord and a blister on your left foot and Edith crying her eyes out because Isaiah isn’t looking for a relationship, because he’s “looking to have fun and explore”, which is something you could’ve (should’ve) told her, but. God she was so happy and you didn’t want to spoil it.

It’s a problem that he’s handsome to the extent that you’re picturing him when he’s talking on the phone, and the two of you are talking on the phone a lot more now, a lot more than you should, because that costs money and because it’s all so much more complicated. If you admit it to yourself now, you were maybe hoping to get into bed with him sometime, back when he was a quiet-eyed and watchful stranger who you told yourself you were mostly only meeting because of Edith.

But now you can’t see him, because there’s got to be such a thing as loyalty between women, and anyways it’s almost enough, staying up past the time Edith goes to sleep and then curling up in a chair with the phone, telling him everything. Telling him too much.

He doesn’t talk much some nights, but he laughs, some nights, and that makes up for it. You don’t know how to stop. You’ve never known how to stop with him, and you had excuses, earlier, when you were young and didn’t know that you could lose people your own age as well as parents. Or maybe that’s no excuse at all. At any rate, you’ve no excuses now.

You’re fucked now.

 

# VII.

Somehow the late-night telephone turns into him coming over on Thursdays (when Edith’s out) and drinking tea. You tell yourself this is cheaper, and therefore smarter. You don’t bother to tidy up because fuck it but also you’re wearing lipstick and you know it’s a contradiction but fuck that too. He comes over on Thursdays and he smiles a little more now. You keep telling him everything except what you need to say. He tells you more than he used to, tells you about Polly, he tells you about work, or at least as much as you can take.

You can’t comprehend why he’d go back into any kind of danger when he could be a settled accountant somewhere else, never fear for bleeding except if he strayed into some back alley, or if the country strayed into some new war. But then, there’s his mother. You try not to think about your own mother, but you know deep down you’d do all that and worse for her. And she left you behind. Polly didn’t even leave him behind.

And this is dangerous, but fine. You have it handled. When he flies into your room flushed with beer and victory from a bar fight and his eyes are alight and he gets a little too close, you make him drink water and you listen to the story. You have it handled. When he tells you one night that his sister is dead, you don’t cry till he’s gone. You have it handled. When you’re already drunk because you think you’re going to be fired over some paperwork that Millie mishandled but that you’re too proud to pin on her, he holds your hair as you throw up into the toilet and he holds you and you think you cling to his shirt with one hand but that’s not too much. You have it handled.

 

# VIII.

“Do you want a hand?” he says, as you poke at the wood in the potbelly stove.

“No, it’s fine.”

But he’s crouched there beside you, and you forgot--you always think of him in Birmingham first, but he’s a country boy too. In a couple minutes, he has the fire roaring strong, and you’re looking over his shoulder to see how he does it so quick, and then he turned.

He’s gold in this light, but his gray eyes are so dark they’re almost black.

You want to ask the question with a kiss, but he’s so, so still that when you lean in, you’re afraid to touch at the very last second, because _without asking_ has been the bane of both your lives. Your forehead rests against his. That’s asking.

Michael takes a damn long time to consider the question, but his answer more than makes up for it: his hands are tight in your hair, his tongue ravenous in your mouth, his body pushing forward, needy in a way you didn’t know he was capable of, powerful in a way that has you panting.

He carries you to bed and it’s _yeah?_ With his hands at your blouse buttons. _Yeah_ and you smile wide because there is something funny about this, there has to be, you can’t figure out what but God he’s gorgeous and those clothes can’t come off fast enough. The slide inward is a slow stretch, and you can’t help but twitch a little, even as you’re kissing him hard.

He stills.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” he says, so soft you almost don’t catch it.

“You can’t,” you lie.

 

# IX.

He does, just not in the way you expected.

It’s been a couple weeks since, and you’ve found ways and times, always Thursday but sometimes Saturday too. You can’t get enough of him; how he takes you apart with his hands. How you put him back together.

The skies over Birmingham are exceptionally sunny and you hum on your way to work now, which is all right because Edith’s found a new man (older, mysterious, but apparently quite generous, so good for her) and you don’t bother hiding the hickeys, don’t bother coming up with an excuse when she hangs around that Thursday and you kick her out.

He doesn’t come that Thursday and he’s not at the pub Friday and by Saturday you’re out of your mind so you go over to his place.

Polly has never met you, but apparently she knows who you are, or knows that you’re not a threat. Or maybe those are just her dark eyes, like her sons, seeming to know everything.

She lets you in and tells you to sit down in the living room. You sit for all of two seconds when you hear his voice, upstairs, hoarser than usual, and then you gather up your skirt in your hands and make a run for it up the stairs before Polly can stop you.

He tries to give you that lopsided smile, but it’s hard when his jaw’s that swollen. “Did you bring me ice?” he says.

You never wanted to bring him ice again. You never wanted to see that mottled yellow-purple on his skin again. You go right back down the stairs and out into the rain.

 

# X.

_Knock knock._

Edith opens the door.

“Y/N?” she calls, and you poke your head out of the bedroom, where you’d been having yourself a good long nap, just really wallowing in self-pity. It’s been a week. You give yourself one week more before you have to pull your life together again.

You throw on a housecoat and shuffle out of the bedroom only to find a blue-eyed man sitting on your sofa. In your spot. Setting down his unmistakable cap on the table.

“Fuck off,” you say, surprising yourself with your own vitriol. Edith looks between you and him and puts on her shoes.

“It’s affecting his work,” Tommy Shelby says, deliberate and demanding, as if that’s your problem.

Edith rushes out the door and locks it behind her.

“Is it affecting his work worse than a broken jaw?”

“It’s not broken.”

“Oh, then it’s fine?”

“No.” God, something about that flat-eyed stare. You just want to shake him.

“But you don’t just tolerate his injuries,you cause them. You send him out to do the work.”

Tommy shrugs. “He volunteered.”

“You shouldn’t have let him!”

“He’s got one mother, Y/N. One’s enough, don’t you think?”

“He hasn’t always.”

That hit scores. There’s a note of fury in his voice when he says, “He does now.”

“Fuck you.”

“He’s in and out of fistfights plenty, with or without the company. What’s the difference?”

“If you can’t see it, I can’t help you.”

“Go on and explain, then,” Tommy says, with an air of resignation that just screams out to you for a punch in the face.

 _“Do you love him or not?”_ You’re shaking. The rain outside has gone wild, there’s not pattering on the windows so much as there are absolute sheets.

Tommy doesn’t reply quickly enough. Of course he doesn’t, he’s a man, the kind of man for whom a _yes_ could only be said very quietly to somebody else, his wife maybe. But she’s dead and you’re not like that at all, so you go on: “Because I love him, and I’ve thought about it for months now. I don’t see how his real family could love him and then pull him into work that leaves him looking like he was thrown off a fucking building. You have what I always wanted.”

Fuck.

No, it’s too late to stop now.

“You can protect him. _You can protect him._ I could never protect him, I could never do a fucking thing _and I still can’t_ and you’re the king of Birmingham with a hundred soldiers at your disposal and yet you sit there on my _fucking--_ ” Your voice breaks, but you plow on. “--sofa and tell me that I should shut up and spread my legs because it’s affecting his _work?”_

There’s something for you to say then, maybe _go to hell_ or _piss off_ but you’re crying, so you have to take a second to deal with that, to blow your nose, and Tommy’s sitting there like a stone and suddenly you’re very, very tired. You feel dread and you don’t know why, the rain’s going absolutely wild and you ball up your fists. “Get out.”

He does. Although he pauses at the door first. “There’s a fundraiser next Sunday for the orphanage. Picnic and an auction. You’re invited.”

And there it is. “Fuck you.”

 

# XI.

You spend the next week telling yourself you won’t go, but then you go.

You spend the whole walk there telling yourself it will probably be a rotten picnic anyway because of all the clouds, but when you get there, things are surprisingly alright. You get a lot of looks, but your dress passes muster, and the cucumber sandwiches are stupid but tasty, and the punch is more than good.

Your chest constricts when you glimpse Michael chatting with Tommy about something, but the bruises on him have faded well. Finishing your sandwich, you steel your nerves for the inevitable conversation, even prepare a few words for yourself to start with; _hello, Michael, you’re looking alright_ seems bland enough to be safe and friendly enough to signal that you don’t want to start shouting at each other in the middle of what is essentially a tea party.

Except you’ve drifted off in your mind, trying to figure out what comes next, so you’re not prepared when he appears at your elbow and says your name.

“Hi,” you say, taken aback. He’s standing close even though the crowd is sparse, and you can smell the soap he uses if you just edge a little closer, which against all sense, you do.

“Hi.”

“Lovely party.” See, this is why you hate fighting with him; you’d much rather make fun of the bowtie he’s wearing and watch a smile break out over his face. Instead he just looks around like he’s noticing the party for the first time.

“Yeah. Listen--” He can’t meet your eyes, but you let it go for now.

“Yes?”

“I’m sorry. The ice, the joke, it was a stupid thing to say.” His gaze is direct. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“Did you think there was any way I wouldn’t be upset?”

“That’s why I didn’t come visit you.”

“You could’ve called.”

“My jaw made talking pretty hard.”

“Yeah.”

Somewhere far off, there’s birdsong, and the sun’s begun to come out a little. You don’t smile, but your voice is gentle.

“I can’t do that again,” you say.

“I know.” He chews on his bottom lip. “Look, I’m making changes. Can we talk about this somewhere else?”

As if he doesn’t know the answer. “Yes.”

“Right. I have to go tell Tommy.”

“You have one mum already,” you say. “One’s enough, don’t you think?”

“I was supposed to help with the auction, and if I disappear without handing it off to Finn, Tommy will think I’ve been taken.”

For one incredibly unsettling moment, you find yourself perfectly in tandem with Tommy Shelby; you, too, would most likely lose your shit if Michael disappeared on you. But the moment passes. You roll your eyes and give Michael a push. “Go on, then.”

He argues with Tommy a little, bless, him, and as you watch, you feel some part of yourself settling back into place. It’s been painful, all of this, but painful like a dislocated shoulder being set right. You’ve never left Michael and he’s never left you; being torn away doesn’t count. Nothing is settled, but you can’t help the feeling that things are mending, that someday in the not-so-distant future, you can--

The expression of horror on Michael’s face when he shouts _“Gun!”_ is some cruel spell that turns time to liquid round you, slow. You turn your head and your body is slow, you try to run but your body is slow. There’s a man and yes a gun and no, you won’t make it in time. He’s trying to tackle Tommy to the ground but he won’t make it in time.

This isn’t fair.

Your hair flickers around your head, your chest throbs, the air is alive with electricity and you open your mouth and _scream._

The world goes black. You haven’t closed your eyes and yet you can’t see.

You fall.

 

# XII.

Bed. Your own bed, and there’s Michael, in his shirtsleeves, looking out your window at the sunset beyond.

Your mouth is dry and it tastes strange. Not like bad breath, like the burn of a whiskey’s somehow gone permanent. You try to sit up but God you’re exhausted.

The rustling of covers lets him know you’re awake, and he darts over to your side, puts his hands on your shoulders. “Easy, easy.”

Blinking up at him, the only thing you can think is: “How are you not dead?”

“You don’t remember?”

“I remember the gun.”

He nods. “You took care of that.”

“How?”

“I hardly know.” The expression on his face as he shakes his head is something you haven’t seen from him before; a little soft, but awed, too. “You should’ve seen the looks on their faces. All the talk about the ‘gypsy witchcraft’ and the real witch turns out to be a born-and-bred Scottish Brummie.” He grins.

You smack him.

“What?”

“Stop being theatrical and use your fucking words!”

“I don’t know what happened! One minute, I thought I was gonna die, and the next minute, you shouted, and there was lightning of some kind, and you collapsed on the grass. I could hardly see for a minute afterwards because of the light.”

“And the man with the gun?”

“Dead.”

“Are you sure?”

“He wasn’t so much a man as a pile of ashes by the time I got to him, so yeah. Yeah, I’m pretty sure.” He strokes your hair. “It’s like that hailstorm, isn’t it? The one after--after you got upset about it, and you were sick with the flu for weeks?”

“Yeah, maybe.” You don’t want to think about it, can’t. It’s too much to take in, and he’s here, so you throw back the covers. “Come here.”

The primary feeling you get after settling into his chest, the crook of his arm, is one of belonging, like you’re returning to a place you shouldn’t have left. But that can’t be, because when you were children, you weren’t like this. Even after fucking, you’ve not been like this. Maybe that doesn’t matter.

He strokes your hair as you kiss him for a long time, lazily, like you have all the time in the world. And perhaps you do.

“Edith’s worried about you,” he murmurs, after a good five minutes of this. You frown. “What did you tell her?”

“That you got caught in a storm.”

“Not a lie.”

“No.” He stares off into the distance, but you’re not having that solitary soldier shit anymore. You poke his chest.

“What?” you say.

“I was just thinking that I may need to get us our own place. Edith’s alright, but I can’t exactly fuck you as freely as I’d like.”

“Or as often as I deserve.”

“Or that. But. Mum’s not going to be keen on me moving in out with a girl I haven’t married.”

“So you’ll blame it on Polly, then? When you propose?”

He smiles. “Probably.”

“Then I won’t accept.”

“Good to know. Would you accept if I told you that declining would lead to very serious consequences for me?”

“What kind of consequences?”

“Bachelorhood until death.”

“Doesn’t sound so bad.”

“It is.”

“Why’s that?”

He takes in a breath, and you can see the next words he was about to lob at you just melt away. “Because,” he says slowly, “I love you. And if you don’t--”

That’s a kiss, nothing lazy about it. Scorching, your fingers grabbing his hair, his hands on your hips. When you break away, you’re panting.

“Don’t say that shit again,” you say.

“It was a hypothetical.”

“Well, don’t.”

“Sorry.” He tucks your head in against his neck with his chin. “It should be easy, then. I’ll need an advance on my salary and a decent proposal idea, but I think I can sort that pretty quickly.”

“Tommy doesn’t strike me as one to easily part with money.”

“I could always threaten to have you electrocute him to death.”

“Mm.” You smile dreamily. “That’d be nice.”

“I’m a little worried that you’re so keen on killing one of my relatives.”

“Like you’ve never wanted to before. He goes round practically begging for it.”

“Fair enough.” You really are tired, and the movement of his hand in your hair is lulling you into sleepiness. You close your eyes.

“What do you think the wedding will be like?” he says.

“Full of sunshine.”


End file.
